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Martin White of Intranet Focus Blog provokes some thoughts on just who should staff and run an intranet for best results. The need to take an integrated view of a company's information systems seems to be gaining momentum.
My limited experience has been, in fact, that IT quite often does strangle intranets and most any collaborative effort with a lock-down, security-centric approach that is rarely warranted. Certainly some things need strong protection, but the blanket application of strong security technologies and approaches have really limited the usabiltiy of intranets I've been a part of -- for both large and small companies.
This, in turn, limited users' ability to easily contribute and update content, leading to some of the problems noted in the article.
Intranets need team players. This is the title of an excellent article in New Media Zero by Steve Lodewyke of Think Lateral. This short article contains some important insights into the management of intranets.
Steve observes that "Business-minded information professionals are needed, people who can open dialogues between departments to create improved products, services and systems. It will be these 'communication altruists' who will draw together IT, corporate librarians and HR in order to make the corporate intranet flourish. It's crucial that employees trust the content on their intranet, as well as the team responsible for its implementation. Currently, many companies recognise that their intranet is becoming a bank of information that no-one has any faith in, with no discernible knowledge management in place. It's time to give the task to the communicators, to cut through the chaos. Together with the Webmaster they will be able to create inter-departmental links to pull the side together. A game plan can then be devised to focus on business imperatives such as corporate culture, rather than technology. More importantly, they can identify where return on investment will be delivered. This quantifiable index of intranet success is what's needed to win the support of the directors."
The number of intranets I come across where the IT department has managed to strangle an intranet, often at birth. As Steve points out "When intranets first came into play, many could see the business sense in having one, but were unsure of where to start. It was customary to give the task to IT, because the intranet was seen as a technology solution. Although this strategy has delivered a lot of intranets, their quality is now under review. Information technologists don't have a monopoly on intranet common sense and companies are aware that their intranet isn't the open communication tool that their people need. Intranets are about communication. Obviously the better the technology, the better it will perform. But a great technical solution won't make an intranet work if information is hard to find or out of date."
There is nothing I can add. Steve has said it all.
Martin White [Intranet Focus Blog]
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